H.E. Hideaki Domichi, Ambassador of Japan to India
Upon having assumed office as Ambassador of Japan
to India in November 2007, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my warm greetings to all readers of Japan Calling.
This is the first time I have been offered the chance to work for Japan-India relations in my long career in the Japanese Foreign Service. I find it fortunate to be able to serve as Ambassador of Japan to India at a most opportune time when our already friendly relations are really on an upswing.
Before coming to India, I was interviewed by a local Japanese media person from my hometown, Kanazawa-City, who asked me to express India in one phrase. Honestly speaking, I was a little puzzled at the question, but almost instinctively answered “To me India is a country full of brilliant colors”. At that time, I admit I did not have much confidence in my answer, but I now begin to feel my answer was appropriate. Even in my short stay here, I have indeed found a lot of colorful brilliance in India. Besides the newspaper headline that reports about more billionaires from India, there are abundant colorful culture and people’s life that are sometimes outstanding or in confusion, but never fail to attract the person who visits India.
Japan and India have been cultivating friendly relations from the introduction of Buddhism to Japan in the 6th century, up to the present times. In the ancient period, Japanese people called India “the Heaven in the West” and dreamt of visiting the country. It was an Indian Priest, Bodhisena, who inaugurated the Great Buddha Statue of Todaiji Temple in Nara, in the 8th century.
It is also very intriguing to look back momentarily on our history of exchanges in the modern era before the World War II, like friendship between a famous Japanese thinker Okakura Tenshin and Rabindranath Tagore, or to see the letters exchanged between Okakura Tenshin and a Bengali poet Ms. Priyamvada Banerjee. Even though the distance between Japan and India must have been felt much longer compared with today, these personal exchanges would make one feel we were so close.
